he is said to dwell in the castle of Kronborg, his beard grown down to the floor, and to sleep there until some date when Denmark is in mortal danger, at which time he will rise up and deliver the nation

Monday, September 23, 2013

Kenyan Mall Hostages Still In the Hands of Al Shabaab, Explosions Reported

The fate of the remaining hostages in the Kenyan Mall in Nairobi certainly doesn't look promising as the al Shabaab jihadis from Somalia have not budged - the latest reports are of explosions as the Kenyan military and security forces try to rescue those hostages.

For anyone thinking those hostages might get released, forget it. Either they will die or their captors will die - nothing in between.

NAIROBI: A series of loud explosions and heavy gunfire was heard at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall Monday as dense black smoke billowed from the complex, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

The area around the mall was teeming with Kenyan soldiers and armoured personnel carriers, as emergency workers and reporters were told to take cover.

Ambulances were also seen accelerating towards the scene.

The mall has been under siege by Al Qaeda-linked Somali gunmen since Saturday in an attack that has killed at least 69 people, with another 63 reported missing.

As the stand-off entered its third day, sustained bursts of rapid gunfire broke out at dawn, and soldiers posted around the complex ducked for cover.

This was followed by explosions and more sporadic weapons fire, AFP correspondents at the scene said.

The Kenyan army said it had secured most of the upmarket, part Israeli-owned complex, while a security official said a final assault was underway against the Somali Shebab rebels, believed to be pinned down in a part of the mall but using hostages as human shields.

“We have managed to rescue more hostages overnight and very few are remaining,” Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo said Monday, in the latest of a string of upbeat statements. “We are also closing in on the attackers.”

Officials have not said how many people were being held by the dozen-or-so attackers, who marched into the sprawling four-storey complex at midday Saturday, spraying shoppers with machine gun fire and tossing grenades.

Shebab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage warned the hostages would “bear the brunt of any force directed against the mujahideen”.

However, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has vowed the attackers will “not get away with their despicable and beastly acts.” ”We will punish the masterminds swiftly, and indeed very painfully,” he vowed in a speech Sunday, revealing that a family member — a nephew and his fiancee — were among the dead.

A Kenyan security source and a Western intelligence official said Israeli forces were involved in the operation, along with British and US agents.

Bodies still inside

Terrified witnesses told of scenes of horror and panic as the masked gunmen stormed in. Officials estimated some 200 people have been wounded, and the Red Cross made a nationwide appeal for blood donors.

The Shebab rebels said the carnage was in retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia, where African Union troops are battling the Islamists.

“If you want Kenya in peace, it will not happen as long as your boys are in our lands,” rebel spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said in a statement posted on an Islamist website.

The group also issued a string of statements via Twitter, one of them claiming that Muslims in the centre had been “escorted out by the mujahideen before beginning the attack”.

A number of witnesses have been quoted as saying that the gunmen were trying to weed out non-Muslims for execution by interrogating people on their faith or asking them to recite the Shahada, or Muslim profession of faith.

The dead include four Britons, two French women, two Canadians including a diplomat, a Chinese woman, two Indians, a South Korean, a South African and a Dutch woman, according to their governments. Also killed was Ghanaian poet and former UN envoy Kofi Awoonor, 78, while his son was injured.

Prime Minister David Cameron was due Monday to chair a meeting of Britain's emergency response committee COBRA over the crisis in the Kenyan capital

Rumours swirled that non-Somalis and women were among the fighters but the Shebab have denied such press reports.

'People sprayed with bullets'

Mall worker Zipporah Wanjiru, who emerged from the ordeal alive but in a state of shock, said she hid under a table with five other colleagues.

“They were shooting indiscriminately, it was like a movie seeing people sprayed with bullets like that,” she said, bursting into tears.

Security camera footage seen by Kenya's The Standard newspaper showed gunmen raking toilet cubicles with a barrage of gunfire, apparently after learning that several people were hiding inside.

Fighters later holed up in a cinema on the top floor and a security room of a supermarket, the paper added.

Cafe waiter Titus Alede, who leapt from the first floor of the mall to avoid being killed, said it was a “miracle from God” that he managed to escape the approaching gunmen.

“I remember them saying 'you killed our people in Somalia, it is our time to pay you back',” he said.

Other survivors said they played dead to avoid being killed.

In the hours after the attack began, shocked people of all ages and races could be seen running from the mall, some clutching babies, while others crawled along walls to avoid stray bullets.

Israeli interests in Kenya have come under attack before, and the Westgate mall — popular with well-to-do Kenyans, diplomats, UN workers and other expatriates — has long been seen as a potential target.

World powers condemned the attack, which is the worst in Nairobi since an Al Qaeda bombing at the US embassy killed more than 200 people in 1998.

US President Barack Obama called Kenyatta offering support “to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice”, while UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the violence was “totally reprehensible".

3 comments:

Muslims always have an excuse to shed someone elses blood. What they dont do is ever want to sit down and talk things out. This will end badly for teh hostages and they will no doubt die. I hope maerica wakes up I hope Obama wakes up and caneron and ashoton and others. You are all dead in teh eyes of the muslims. Why do you treat them with kid gloves. we are infidels and can be slaughtered for whatever the excuse of the day happens to be. If the west does not take out the muslims hoardes and soon, we will have a major problem on our hands. This is not politically correct thinking, but we stopped teh s4r5bs and now look at what we have here. and it will come to our shores as out muslim citizens leave to join jihadis and then come back. Imagine thousands of Omar Khaders coming home to kill us.

How many christians have been slaughtered this year by jihadis and exstremists lets get a body count clock and keep teh tally up to date and each day ask Obama and others why they do not denouce and then do something to prevent it from happening. Christians are getting pissed and may well start their own jihad against teh muslims. Just what teh world needs but in teh absence of a response from the west it may well be the only option.

The Legend.....

but should danger ever come, then Holger Danske will rouse himself, and the table will burst asunder as he draws out his beard. Then he will come forth in his strength, and strike a blow that shall sound in all the countries of the world.

- Hans Christian Andersen

Holger Danske

....he is stirring

Holger Awakens

An American of Swedish, Norwegian and not the least, Danish descent.

A fighter of islamofascism and islamic jihad, a defender of the U.S. Constitution and America, a full supporter of the U.S. troops and the state of Israel and a true conservative at heart, but above all, before all...a humble servant of Jesus Christ.